In the high-stakes world of professional kitchens and reality TV, few chefs embody resilience, passion and capability quite like Chef Tzarina Mace-Ralph.
Now 33, British born Chef Tzarina captured the heart of Bravo’s audience in Below Deck Down Under Seasons 2&3 with her infectious positivity, vulnerability and willingness to learn. As she told us in a wide-ranging interview, "I'm a very positive person, and I want to be able to do everything that the world chucks at me. You know, I'm very much a yes person. I don't like to say no to things. If someone says, you want to come do this Below Deck show, I’ll be like, all right, I'll give it a go. Let's see how this comes out.”
First, some background for our readers lacking in reality TV obsession. What lends the long-running Below Deck franchise and its now three spin-offs so much cachet, and wins Chef Tzarina so many ardent fans, is that few – if any – of us can afford the luxury of spending $1 million+ per week to charter a super yacht in exotic locales, complete with its own culinary team and crew. Pair this with a young, stunningly beautiful cast and the lifestyles of their super-rich “charters,” and the effect can be mesmerizing.
How mesmerizing? Just one episode last season netted more than a million viewers. (We invite the more casual gawker to tour last year’s vessel here: https://www.bravotv.com/below-deck-down-under/season-3/videos/tour-the-below-deck-down-under-season-3-yacht.)
But Chef Tzarina is much more than meets the eye, as she inspires us all to feed our souls with adventure and our bodies with fuel for healing whatever ails us.
In real life, this dynamic culinary professional has overcome chronic disease and a rough-and-tumble childhood with determination, creativity, and authenticity.
Early Challenges, Unexpected Beginnings
Growing up in an unconventional but very supportive family in England, Tzarina faced significant challenges in her early years. Coping with ADHD, she was often bullied at school and told she would never amount to anything, but she found solace and purpose in cooking. Attending a Waldorf Steiner School that emphasized biodynamic gardening and holistic education exposed her to alternative approaches to nutrition and wellness and seems to have instilled an enthusiasm for learning in any environment.
At 15, she left school with few formal qualifications. She trained part-time as a hairdresser and chef. Quickly discovering her talent wasn't in hair styling but in the culinary arts, she focused entirely on her passion for food. By 21, she had achieved a remarkable milestone – becoming head chef at a high-end bistro in Birmingham. It was from there that she was discovered by an unnamed celebrity rock star and entered the world of private cheffing for the rich and famous.
Her rapid rise in the restaurant industry came at a steep personal cost. Working relentless hours without a break, she experienced a profound moment of reckoning when she was hospitalized with exhaustion. This traumatic experience became a catalyst for both personal and professional growth.
Growing up, her supportive household both instilled a sense of adventure and prioritized homeopathic medicine and natural nutrition. At the same time her neurodiversity made her impatient with the thought of a quotidian, 9-5 career, her awareness of the impact of what she ate on her state of mind helped her gravitate towards learning about health and wellness. Her health challenges only deepened her commitment to understanding the intricate relationship between nutrition and healing.
Culinary Versatility and a Holistic Approach
Of course, not everyone has the luxury of tapping the world’s best ingredients, literally from the rice fields of Bali to the shores of the Mediterranean. Serving royalty in Paris she was once whisked off to Italy by private helicopter to source organic tomatoes. For their ship-board excursions, her luxury clients can fly in anything from edible flowers to the freshest produce and exotic ingredients.
Like a heady, organic bone broth, everything she has learned from the high-pressure kitchens of Birmingham to the Seychelles off the coast of East Africa has gone into the pot that is her life. It all contributes to her holistic understanding of food, nutrition, and human connections.
She now sees herself as both an educator and nutrition consultant with a deeply personal approach to wellness. Her philosophy centers on listening to one's body and understanding cravings as signals of deeper nutritional needs. Just by paying attention, we can all make the connection between our emotional well-being and dietary choices.
Her recently published eBook, Inside Out: The Gut-Healthy Kitchen (online at https://bit.ly/ChefTBook) reflects this philosophy. It includes a 13-day clean eating guide complemented by a bone broth cleanse for which she spent three years perfecting the recipe. As she writes in the preface, “What began as a quiet curiosity evolved into a full-blown lifestyle transformation. I committed myself to learning everything I could about the gut-brain connection, functional nutrition, and the healing power of food. Through study, experience, and travel, I immersed myself in the world of holistic wellness.”
She explains, “This journey wasn’t just about food; it was about reclaiming my energy, stabilizing my hormones, supporting my neurodivergent mind, and creating a sense of calm and clarity from within.” In other words, “This isn’t just a diet; it’s a lifestyle reset.”
Living Life Out Loud
Her Below Deck experience catapulted her into the public eye, for which she is thankful, but it may be just an amuse bouche for what’s to come. She’d like to weave deeper stories about how travel and food intersect. And, she’d like to somehow empower other “underdogs” like herself to succeed.
Throughout life, she has turned her challenges into a source of energy and creativity. She's candid about her struggles, including burnouts and emotional crashes, but maintains an overwhelmingly positive outlook. Her approach to life mirrors her cooking philosophy – embrace challenges, learn from them, and keep moving forward.
Recently, after seven years of focusing solely on her career, she intentionally sought a life partner, ultimately meeting her current boyfriend through the dating app Hinge. Because they met in Fort Lauderdale, she jokes that her boyfriend “catfished” her by bringing his whole family to meet her in Florida, though he’s really from Edina, Minnesota, where they now live. (She hastens to say she now loves it there, and even makes her own butter!) Because he doesn’t share her life in the public eye, they’re private about the relationship for now, but hope to have an opportunity to share more in the new year.
Whatever comes next, she won’t be constrained by traditional expectations. “It’s classic ADHD isn’t it? I think I always have a lot of pots on the stove because whenever I have a business idea, the first thing I have to do is just start it within the first 24 hours of thinking of it. If you fail, then you just learn from those mistakes so eventually you get something that is running perfectly.” Her other rule of thumb: “Just eat the cube of chocolate," encapsulates her balanced approach to life and nutrition – moderation, mindfulness, and eliminating unnecessary stress.
She won’t share a New Year’s resolution, opting for the freedom to constantly re-invent herself. “I don't like to put that kind of pressure on myself and predict too much, because I don't like the feeling of being disappointed. I like to live day by day and week by week and see what adventures will come to me.” Follow her @cheftzarina.
"I'm a very positive person, and I want to be able to do everything that the world chucks at me. You know, I'm very much a yes person. I don't like to say no to things."
"I committed myself to learning everything I could about the gut-brain connection, functional nutrition, and the healing power of food."
"I like to live day by day and week by week and see what adventures will come to me.”